Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “What do you mean?” said the baronet. “If you have anything to tell me — anything that can throw light upon the mystery of my wife’s flight — speak out, and speak quickly. I am almost mad, Reginald. Forgive me, if I spoke harshly just now. You are my nephew, and the mask I wear before the world may be dropped in your presence.”

  “I know nothing personally of Lady Eversleigh’s disappearance,” said Reginald; “but I have good reason to believe that Miss Graham could tell you much, if she chose to speak out. She has hinted at being in the secret, and I think it only right you should question her.”

  “I will question her,” answered sir Oswald, starting to his feet. “Send her to me, Reginald.”

  Mr. Eversleigh left his uncle, and Miss Graham very speedily appeared — looking the very image of unconscious innocence — and quite unable to imagine what “dear Sir Oswald” could want with her.

  The baronet came to the point very quickly, and before Lydia had time for consideration, she had been made to give a full account of the scene which she had witnessed on the previous evening between Victor Carrington and Honoria.

  Of course, Miss Graham told Sir Oswald that she had witnessed this strange scene in the most accidental manner. She had happened to be in a walk that commanded a view of the fir-grove.

  “And you saw my wife agitated, clinging to that man?”

  “Lady Eversleigh was terribly agitated.”

  “And then you saw her take her place in the gig, of her own free will?”

  “I did, Sir Oswald.”

  “Oh, what infamy!” murmured the baronet; “what hideous infamy!”

  It was to himself that he spoke rather than to Miss Graham. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, and it seemed as if he were scarcely aware of the young lady’s presence.

  Lydia was almost terrified by that blank, awful look. She waited for a few moments, and then, finding that Sir Oswald questioned her no further, she crept quietly from the room, glad to escape from the sorrow-stricken husband. Malicious though she was, she believed that this time she had spoken the truth.

  “He has reason to repent his romantic choice,” she thought as she left the library. “Perhaps now he will think that he might have done better by choosing a wife from his own set.”

  The day wore on; Sir Oswald remained alone in the library, seated before a table, with his arms folded, his gaze fixed on empty space — a picture of despair.

  The clock had struck many times; the hot afternoon sun blazed full upon the broad Tudor windows, when the door was opened gently, and some one came into the room. Sir Oswald looked up angrily, thinking it was one of the servants who had intruded on him.

  It was his wife who stood before him, dressed in the white robes she had worn at the picnic; but wan and haggard, white as the dress she wore.

  “Oswald,” she cried, with outstretched hands, and the look of one who did not doubt she would be welcome.

  The baronet sprang to his feet, and looked at that pale face with a gaze of unspeakable indignation.

  “And you dare to come back?” he exclaimed. “False-hearted adventuress — actress — hypocrite — you dare to come to me with that lying smile upon your face — after your infamy of last night!”

  “I am neither adventuress, nor hypocrite, Oswald. Oh, where have your love and confidence vanished that you can condemn me unheard? I have done no wrong — not by so much as one thought that is not full of love for you! I am the helpless victim of the vilest plot that was ever concocted for the destruction of a woman’s happiness.”

  A mocking laugh burst from the lips of Sir Oswald.

  “Oh,” he cried, “so that is your story. You are the victim of a plot, are you? You were carried away by ruffians, I suppose? You did not go willingly with your paramour? Woman, you stand convicted of your treachery by the fullest evidence. You were seen to leave the Wizard’s Cave! You were seen clinging to Victor Carrington — were seen to go with him, willingly. And then you come and tell me you are the victim of a plot! Oh, Lady Eversleigh, this is too poor a story. I should have given you credit for greater powers of invention.”

  “If I am guilty, why am I here?” asked Honoria.

  “Shall I tell you why you are here?” cried Sir Oswald, passionately, “Look yonder, madam! look at those wide woodlands, the deer-park, the lakes and gardens; this is only one side of Raynham Castle. It was for those you returned, Lady Eversleigh, for the love of those — and those alone. Influenced by a mad and wicked passion, you fled with your lover last night; but no sooner did you remember the wealth you had lost, the position you had sacrificed, than you repented your folly. You determined to come back. Your doting husband would doubtless open his arms to receive you. A few imploring words, a tear or so, and the poor, weak dupe would be melted. This is how you argued; but you were wrong. I have been foolish. I have abandoned myself to the dream of a dotard; but the dream is past. The awakening has been rude, but it has been efficacious. I shall never dream again.”

  “Oswald, will you not listen to my story?”

  “No, madam, I will not give you the opportunity of making me a second time your dupe. Go — go back to your lover, Victor Carrington. Your repentance comes too late. The Raynham heritage will never be yours. Go back to your lover; or, if he will not receive you, go back to the gutter from which I took you.”

  “Oswald!”

  The cry of reproach went like a dagger to the heart of the baronet. But he steeled himself against those imploring tones. He believed that he had been wronged — that this woman was as false as she was beautiful.

  “Oswald,” cried Honoria, “you must and shall hear my story. I demand a hearing as a right — a right which you could not withhold from the vilest criminal, and which you shall not withhold from me, your lawfully wedded and faithful wife. You may disbelieve my story, if you please — heaven knows it seems wild and improbable! — but you shall hear it. Yes, Oswald, you shall!”

  She stood before him, drawn to her fullest height, confronting him proudly. If this was guilt, it was, indeed, shameless guilt. Unhappily, the baronet believed in the evidence of Lydia Graham, rather than in the witness of his wife’s truth. Why should Lydia have deceived him? he asked himself. What possible motive could she have for seeking to blight his wife’s fair name?

  Honoria told her story from first to last; she told the history of her night of anguish. She spoke with her eyes fixed on her husband’s face, in which she could read the indications of his every feeling. As her story drew to a close, her own countenance grew rigid with despair, for she saw that her words had made no impression on the obdurate heart to which she appealed.

  “I do not ask you if you believe me,” she said, when her story was finished. “I can see that you do not. All is over between us, Sir Oswald,” she added, in a tone of intense sadness—”all is over. You are right in what you said just now, cruel though your words were. You did take me from the gutter; you accepted me in ignorance of my past history; you gave your love and your name to a friendless, nameless creature; and now that circumstances conspire to condemn me, can I wonder if you, too, condemn — if you refuse to believe my declaration of my innocence? I do not wonder. I am only grieved that it should be so. I should have been so proud of your love if it could have survived this fiery ordeal — so proud! But let that pass. I would not remain an hour beneath this roof on sufferance. I am quite ready to go from this house to-day, at an hour’s warning, never to re-enter it. Raynham Castle is no more to me than that desolate tower in which I spent last night — without your love. I will leave you without one word of reproach, and you shall never hear my name, or see my face again.”

  She moved towards the door as she spoke. There was a quiet earnestness in her manner which might have gone far to convince Oswald Eversleigh of her truth; but his mind was too deeply imbued with a belief in her falsehood. This dignified calm, this subdued resignation, seemed to him only the consummate art of a finished actress.

  “She is steep
ed in falsehood to the very lips,” he thought. “Doubtless, the little she told me of the history of her childhood was as false as all the rest. Heaven only knows what shameful secrets may have been hidden in her past life!”

  She had crossed the threshold of the door, when some sudden impulse moved him to follow her.

  “Do not leave Raynham till you have heard further from me, Lady Eversleigh,” he said. “It will be my task to make all arrangements for your future life.”

  His wife did not answer him. She walked towards the hall, her head bent, her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “She will not leave the castle until she is obliged to do so,” thought Sir Oswald, as he returned to the library. “Oh, what a tissue of falsehood she tried to palm upon me! And she would have blackened my nephew’s name, in order to screen her own guilt!”

  He rang a bell, and told the servant who answered it to fetch Mr. Eversleigh. His nephew appeared five minutes afterwards, still very pale and anxious-looking.

  “I have sent for you, Reginald,” said the baronet, “because I have a duty to perform — a very painful duty — but one which I do not care to delay. It is now nearly a year and a half since I made a will which disinherited you. I had good reason for that step, as you know; but I have heard no further talk of your vices or your follies; and, so far as I can judge, you have undergone a reformation. It is not for me, therefore, to hold sternly to a determination which I had made in a moment of extreme anger: and I should perhaps have restored you to your old position ere this, had not a new interest absorbed my heart and mind. I have had cruel reason to repent my folly. I might feel resentment against you, on account of your friend’s infamy, but I am not weak enough for that. Victor Carrington and I have a terrible account to settle, and it shall be settled to the uttermost. I need hardly tell you that, if you hold any further communication with him, you will for ever forfeit my friendship.”

  “My dear sir, you surely cannot suppose—”

  “Do not interrupt me. I wish to say what I have to say, and to have done with this subject for ever. You know I have already told you the contents of the will which I made after my marriage. That will left the bulk of my fortune to my wife. That will must now be destroyed; and in the document which I shall substitute for it, your name will occupy its old place. Heaven grant that I do wisely, Reginald, and that you will prove yourself worthy of my confidence.”

  “My dear uncle, your goodness overpowers me. I cannot find words to express my gratitude.”

  “No thanks, Reginald. Remember that the change which restores you to your old position is brought about by my misery. Say no more. Better that an Eversleigh should be master of Raynham when I am dead and gone. And now leave me.”

  The young man retired. His face betrayed conflicting emotions. Lost to all sense of honour though he was, the iniquity of the scheme by which he had succeeded weighed horribly upon his mind, and he was seized with a wild fear of the man through whose agency it had been brought about.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER XI.

  “THE WILL! THE TESTAMENT!”

  The brief pang of fear and remorse passed quickly away, and Reginald went out upon the terrace to look upon those woods which were once more his promised heritage; on which he could gaze, as of old, with the proud sense of possession. While looking over that fair domain, he forgot the hateful means by which he had re-established himself as the heir of Raynham. He forgot Victor Carrington — everything except his own good fortune. His heart throbbed with a sense of triumph.

  He left the terrace, crossed the Italian garden, and made his way to the light iron gate which opened upon the park. Leaning wearily upon this gate, he saw an old man in the costume of a pedlar. A broad, slouched hat almost concealed his face, and a long iron-grey beard drooped upon his chest. His garments were dusty, as if with many a weary mile’s wandering on the parched high-roads, and he carried a large pack of goods upon his back.

  The park was open to the public; and this man had, no doubt, come to the garden-gate in the hope of finding some servant who would be beguiled into letting him carry his wares to the castle, for the inspection of Sir Oswald’s numerous household.

  “Stand aside, my good fellow, and let me pass,” said Reginald, as he approached the little gate.

  The man did not stir. His arms were folded on the topmost bar of the gate, and he did not alter his attitude.

  “Let me be the first to congratulate the heir of Raynham on his renewed hopes,” he said, quietly.

  “Carrington!” cried Reginald; and then, after a pause, he asked, “What, in heaven’s name, is the meaning of this masquerade?”

  The surgeon removed his broad-brimmed hat, and wiped his forehead with a hand that looked brown, wizen, and wrinkled as the hand of an old man. Nothing could have been more perfect than his disguise.

  The accustomed pallor of his face was changed to the brown and sunburnt hue produced by constant exposure to all kinds of weather. A network of wrinkles surrounded the brilliant black eyes, which now shone under shaggy eyebrows of iron-grey.

  “I should never have recognized you,” said Reginald, staring for some moments at his friend’s face, completely lost in surprise.

  “Very likely not,” answered the surgeon, coolly; “I don’t want people to recognize me. A disguise that can by any possibility be penetrated is the most fatal mistake. I can disguise my voice as well as my face, as you will, perhaps, hear by and by. When talking to a friend there is no occasion to take so much trouble.”

  “But why have you assumed this disguise?”

  “Because I want to be on the spot; and you may imagine that, after having eloped with the lady of the house, I could not very safely show myself here in my own proper person.”

  “What need had you to return? Your scheme is accomplished, is it not?”

  “Well, not quite.”

  “Is there anything more to be done?”

  “Yes, there is something more.”

  “What is the nature of that something?” asked Reginald.

  “Leave that to me,” answered the surgeon; “and now you had better pass on, young heir of Raynham, and leave the poor old pedlar to smoke his pipe, and to watch for some passing maid-servant who will admit him to the castle.”

  Reginald lingered, fascinated in some manner by the presence of his friend and counsellor. He wanted to penetrate the mystery hidden in the breast of his ally.

  “How did you know that your scheme had succeeded?” he asked, presently.

  “I read my success in your face as you came towards this gate just now. It was the face of an acknowledged heir; and now, perhaps, you will be good enough to tell me your news.”

  Reginald related all that had happened; the use he had made of Lydia Graham’s malice; the interview with his uncle after Lady Eversleigh’s return.

  “Good!” exclaimed Victor; “good from first to last! Did ever any scheme work so smoothly? That was a stroke of genius of yours, Reginald, the use you made of Miss Graham’s evidence. And so she was watching us, was she? Charming creature! how little she knows to what an extent we are indebted to her. Well, Reginald, I congratulate you. It is a grand thing to be the acknowledged heir of such an estate as this.”

  He glanced across the broad gardens, blazing with rich masses of vivid colour, produced by the artistic arrangement of the flower-beds. He looked up to the long range of windows, the terrace, the massive towers, the grand old archway, and then he looked back at his friend, with a sinister light in his glittering black eyes.

  “There is only one drawback,” he said.

  “And that is—”

  “That you may have to wait a very long time for your inheritance. Let me see; your uncle is fifty years of age, I think?”

  “Yes; he is about fifty.” “And he has an iron constitution. He has led a temperate, hardy life. Such a man is as likely to live to be eighty as I am to see my fortieth birthday. And that would give you thirty years’ waiting: a long dela
y — a terrible trial of patience.”

  “Why do you say these things?” cried Reginald, impatiently. “Do you want to make me miserable in the hour of our triumph? Do you mean that we have burdened our souls with all this crime and falsehood for nothing? You are mad, Victor!”

  “No; I am only in a speculative mood. Thirty years! — thirty years would be a long time to wait.”

  “Who says that I shall have to wait thirty years? My uncle may die long before that time.”

  “Ah! to be sure! your uncle may die — suddenly, perhaps — very soon, it may be. The shock of his wife’s falsehood may kill him — after he has made a new will in your favour!”

  The two men stood face to face, looking at each other.

  “What do you mean?” Reginald asked; “and why do you look at me like that?”

  “I am only thinking what a lucky fellow you would be if this grief that has fallen upon your uncle were to be fatal to his life.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Carrington. I won’t think of such a thing. I am had enough, I know; but not quite so bad as to wish my uncle dead.”

  “You would be sorry if he were dead, I suppose? Sorry — with this domain your own! with all power and pleasure that wealth can purchase for a man! You would be sorry, would you? You wish well to the kind kinsman to whom you have been such a devoted nephew! You would prefer to wait thirty years for your heritage — if you should live so long!”

  “Victor Carrington,” cried Reginald, passionately, “you are the fiend himself, in disguise! Let me pass. I will not stop to listen to your hateful words.”

  “Wait to hear one question, at any rate. Why do you suppose I made you sign that promissory note at a twelvemonth’s date?”

  “I don’t know; but you must know, as well as I do, that the note will be waste-paper so long as my uncle lives.”

  “I do know that, my dear Reginald; but I got you to date the document as you did, because I have a kind of presentiment that before that date you will be master of Raynham!”